


Gotta Find a Way to be Okay

by YouPromisedMePie



Category: Joick - Fandom, Jonas Brothers
Genre: Implied/Referenced Incest, Incest, M/M, Multi, Other, Sibling Incest, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 02:51:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20302234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouPromisedMePie/pseuds/YouPromisedMePie
Summary: Last year was complicated for a reason, or a lot of reasons. Joe and Nick may have started to recover from the Jonas Brothers breakup, but only in time to have one of their own.





	Gotta Find a Way to be Okay

**Author's Note:**

> I have been a Jonas Brothers fan since Day One and my love for them has never wavered. I went to a concert this week and have been in a JoBro bubble since then and somehow found my way back to Joick.

Even though they weren’t speaking, Joe had bought Nick’s new album they day it dropped. Of course he had. He was listening and missing hearing that voice in person, but he had decided no matter what he was listening all the way through, beginning to end but he paused after one song in particular.

Picking up the phone with a heavy heart, and a lot of hesitance, he dialed a number he hadn’t used in months. He wasn’t sure he would even pick up, but right before it would have clicked over to voicemail Joe heard him pick up.

Nick didn’t say anything, but Joe knew it was Nick’s small breaths he heard on the line.

“You didn’t really chainsaw our couch, right?” he asks quietly.

Nick sighs softly. “Joe?” he asks, though who else would it be?

“Of course it’s Joe…who else would be calling asking you that?” he replied in frustration, but he was trying not to get upset with Nick. He was the one who’d fucked it all up…and that song…it had ripped open in Joe a wound he thought he’d closed with some degree of success.

“I didn’t think you would hear it…” Nick runs a hand through his hair. “or maybe I did…and no. I didn’t. But I wanted to…I wanted to light the place on fire and leave it for ashes” he admitted, voice cracking. He had sworn he would never talk to Joe about how he’d felt. How it had destroyed him when it had all ended.

\---------------------------------------------

Last year really had been complicated, he had finally gotten on better terms with Joe and they had started hanging out some, just the two of them, and old habits had started back up again. First casual touches on the arm or the shoulder, or the leg if they were sitting down. An arm casually draped over the other’s shoulder when they were standing close by because it felt right, but because there had been that tension between them it felt different than it had before.

When they were younger and on the road touring together all the time, it had just felt like a normal part of their relationship, he and Joe had always been really close and neither of them had ever seen anything weird with being in each other’s space and around one another all the time, it was normal for them. But after the break up and the time they had spent apart, coming back together they had realized that it wasn’t normal brotherly behavior.

The touches became more often and less casual, and the handful of innocent kisses they had shared back then turned to heated looks in the shadows, stolen moments behind a hotel room door that left them both short of breath, or their tight pants fitting a bit less comfortably. They never talked about it, never acknowledged it out loud or talked about what it meant…until one night they did. They had been pressed against the wall of the men’s bathroom in a club, single stall, door locked, and grinding against each other until they both came, hard.

Joe had looked into his eyes and Nick felt his cock twitch again even though his legs felt like jelly, and he knew that it was time. He took Joe’s hand and lead him out of the bathroom and straight through the crowd, out onto the sidewalk, hailing them a cab.

The whole ride back to their hotel they sat on opposite ends of the backseat, hands in their laps and looking out the windows just trying to keep their hands from wandering. Nick paid the driver and they got out, silently getting on the elevator and they didn’t speak until they were safely inside the room with the door locked.

“We need to talk” Nick was always the reasonable one, the one who had to play by rules, who had to talk everything through, and sometimes Joe was grateful for that.

Joe nodded, still a bit out of breath. “Yeah, I think you’re right…”

So they talked, and they decided that they would let it play out, see how things went. They moved in together, fell into a pattern, had routines, and were living mostly like a real couple other than the fact that they couldn’t do anything in public. In fact, they were terrified that someone would find out so it was always very secret.

Despite the always-looming threat of their secret getting out, they were happy and doing really well for quite some time, until the day Joe got the call from Kevin. “People are asking questions, Joe. People are asking questions about you and Nick…and I don’t know how to answer them” Joe had hung up in shock, his phone slipped out of his hand and he just sat there staring at nothing until finally he snapped out of it and realized what he had to do. Nick was on set so he had a few more hours until he would be home and Joe started packing. He packed up clothes, even taking a few of Nick’s shirts, though he left a couple of his that he knew Nick liked to wear sometimes. He packed up his stuff in the bathroom, and some of his cds, there were things that didn’t feel like they were solely his though so he left them. And then there were things he didn’t even think about taking, that he didn’t notice he was leaving.

He piled all of his bags by the door and waited for Nick to get home. He sat on the couch, thinking of all the time they had spent there together. Watching movies, just laying their and listening to music, times they’d made out for what felt like hours, or the many times they had fucked in various positions, condom wrappers probably still stuffed between the cushions. And suddenly he was on his feet, standing up so fast it was like it had burned him. _Guess I’ll just stand_ he thought to himself. He was about to start pacing when he heard soft footsteps and the sound of keys jangling, one sliding into the lock and turning and then the door was open and Nick was standing there and they were looking at each other. “Hey” he said softly.

Nick looked around and saw the bags, he saw how awkwardly Joe was just standing in the corner rather than sitting down or something. And he didn’t move to greet him, or give him a welcome home kiss, nothing. “Joe…? What’s wrong?” he asked cautiously, not sure he wanted the answer.

“We need to talk” he used Nick’s like from before.

Nick sat his stuff down and beelined past Joe, shaking his head. “No, we don’t need to talk about anything Joe” he countered.

Joe sighed, running a hand through his hair. He couldn’t tell Nick about Kevin’s call. He would freak out, he would blame himself for not being careful enough, he would panic about losing his career that he had worked so hard to build, and all of those were the exact reasons he couldn’t tell him. It was better for Nick if he just thought it was Joe’s fault, if he hated Joe, was mad at him not himself.

“It’s over, Nicky” he said solemnly, but decidedly. He hated using the nickname in such a horrible setting but maybe Nick would buy it more or something.

Nick shook his head vehemently, refusing to look at Joe. “It’s not over, because we’re happy, and I have a show coming up, I’m working on a new album, you just formed a new band. There’s still four more months on the lease. Nothing is over” he denied.

Joe placed a hand on Nick’s shoulder, feeling his brother tense and it broke his heart because Nick usually relaxed into his touches. “Nick, it is. It’s over…I’ve already packed. You keep the apartment, you deserve it, and I’ll find somewhere to live. Maybe I can crash with Jack for a bit or something.”

Joe expected Nick to start yelling, to throw something or to punch him, that probably would have been better than the silence he was met with. Nick stood up straight and faced him straight on, finally looking at him. He nodded once. “I’m pretty tired, I’m going to rest” and he turned and went to the bedroom, closing the door softly. Joe stood there stunned until his phone went off that his uber was here and he carried his bags out with one last look at that bedroom door before he pulled the front door shut, leaving his key on the counter.

He called Kevin once he was in the car.

“It’s done” he told his brother. “It’s over, I ended it” his voice was level only because he was trying to hold it together.

“Good” Kevin said, though it was softly, apologetically. “You know it’s for the best…for both of you”

That’s when Joe lost it, finally breaking down right there on the phone with Kevin but he quickly fumbled with his phone and hit the end button.

\----------------------------------------------------

“You were so…so calm, it was like you didn’t care that I was leaving” he accused him.

“I was barely holding it together, Joe. I was trying not to kick and scream, or punch you in the face. Would you rather I had punched you in the face?”

Joe sighs. “Honestly I don’t know, but it would have hurt less than the cold shoulder I got. God, Nick if I knew how much this tore you up…” he shook his head.

“You wanted to end it Joe…_fuck_, the shit you said to me that night when I called you after you left, how I was immature and you needed someone your own age. How we had only started it in the first place because we were too close and codependent and spent too much time together as kids” Joe winced as Nick reminded him of the things he had said to purposefully make Nick mad, so he would let him go.

“It was the only way I could keep you from changing my mind. I knew I had to hurt you, make you mad, otherwise you would be able to say something to make me come back…and I couldn’t do that.”

Nick was so confused, shaking his head even though it wouldn’t make sense of things, and Joe couldn’t see him. “That doesn’t make any sense. If you didn’t want to end it, then why did you?” he asks incredulously.

“Because Kevin…” he started and Nick cut in.

“Kevin?! I’m gonna kill Kevin, what did he do? How did he find out? He forced you to break up with me??” He was flying off the handle and it was hard for Joe to get him to calm down but he finally did.

“No, Kevin called me and told me that people were asking questions, about us…he didn’t know how to answer them, what to say to them, and I realized that I had to end it”

“That’s bullshit Joe, and you know it.” Nick scoffed

“Is it? It would have ruined your career. You would have blamed yourself, we would have lost friends. God, imagine Mom and Dad’s reaction. Things were in danger of getting out and I couldn’t let that happen to us, and I couldn’t do that to our family.”

“So why did you call? Are you trying to take me back?” Nick asked, venom in his voice. Joe understood why he was mad.

“I…I bought your album this morning and was listening to it. Chainsaw just…it really hit me, and I needed to hear your voice, to talk to you. It’s been too long, Nicky”

He heard Nick’s breath catch over the line when he used the nickname without even thinking about it.

“Y-yeah…it has. And who said Chainsaw is about you? Not all of my songs are about you” he tried to sound like he was teasing, but it came out all wrong.

“Isn’t it?” Nick’s silence bugged him. “ Maybe I got it all wrong then, I guess I’m just too self-absorbed and read too much into things” he spat.

“It is about you…I actually added it on within the last week of final cuts. It was an impulsive decision and I regretted it once it was too late.”

“Don’t regret it, it’s a good song. I…the whole album is awesome man”

Nick would never admit that Joe’s opinion was still the only one that really mattered, that if Joe didn’t love the album he would have considered it a failure, no matter how many copies sold.

“Thanks” he said after composing himself. “That means a lot”

Joe smiled, hating how much his heart swelled at Nick’s words.

“Would you want to meet for a drink later? Y’know to celebrate your record release?” Joe asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

“Sure, that sounds good. You pick the place and text me the address”

“Great, I’ll see you later then”

Joe was about to hang up when he heard Nick’s voice.

“Hey J?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s really good to hear your voice” he said quietly, almost a whisper

Joe couldn’t help his smile, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

“You too, Nicky” he croaked out and they both hung up in a comfortable silence.


End file.
